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Saturday, March 31, 2012

Spring Time Fun!! Guest Post by A. McDonald

The most delightful thing about the cyber world is the opportunity to 'meet' amazing people from far and wide. I recently had an opportunity to write a guest post for Allison of "No Time for Flash Cards" fame [click here to see the thoughts on creativity I shared with her readers.] I'm so thrilled to introduce my regular readers to this delightful author and her corner of the world -- from here beneath my rainbow-banner. -- Debbie --

Has spring sprung where you are? Here in the very rainy PNW we are finally seeing some signs. On a walk with my daughter last weekend we saw and played with the pretty pink blossoms on the cherry trees that are all over our town. This is a simple craft but a great way to bring outside in even if it's raining and celebrate spring and new beginnings. Whenever I do an activity like this with a group of kids ( I did this one with 4 ) I start with a question.

"What is happening to the trees outside?"

Let them answer .

"Why?"

After the answers are all shared and every voice has had a chance to speak up I will direct the discussion if need be, With these guys there was no issue. " It's spring, the trees are getting leaves! The sun is making it grow! "

Then we went outside for some branches.

When we came back in we grabbed some paint, cupcake liners and brushes.

I offered lots of colors of paint and of course it all got mixed together they loved the way it swirled.

Painted the liners and let them dry just a bit.

Fold and cut.Now the group I was with would not have been able to do the hot gluing but if you are doing this with kids that are able , I would have them glue their own on the branches.

I popped the branches in a old vase , it was easier to glue already in the vase.

I used a lot of glue and only burned myself twice ( a record for me, I am a glue gun jinx) happily no "bad" words were said in front of other people's kids.

Voila a little bit of kids made spring for your classroom or house.

Allison McDonald is a former teacher and the founder of notimeforflashcards.com a blog all about early education, kids' activities and crafts.